grinned; a gold tooth flashed. “For now you are. You’re a son of the Institute, Luke. Might as well relax and get used to it.”
12
Once they were inside the residence building, Hadad called the elevator, said “Seeya later, alligator,” and stepped in. Luke started back to his room and saw Nicky Wilholm sitting on the floor opposite the ice machine, eating a peanut butter cup. Above him was a poster showing two cartoon chipmunks with comic-strip word balloons coming from their grinning mouths. The one on the left was saying, “Live the life you love!” The other was saying, “Love the life you live!” Luke stared at this, bemused.
“What do you call a poster like that in a place like this, smart kid?” Nicky asked. “Irony, sarcasm, or bullshit?”
“All three,” Luke said, and sat down beside him.
Nicky held out the Reese’s package. “Want the other one?”
Luke did. He said thanks, stripped off the crinkly paper the candy sat in, and ate the peanut butter cup in three quick bites.
Nicky watched him, amused. “Had your first shot, didn’t you? They make you crave sugar. You may not want much for supper, but you’ll eat dessert. Guaranteed. Seen any dots yet?”
“No.” Then he remembered bending over and grasping his knees while he waited for the dizziness to pass. “Maybe. What are they?”
“The techs call em the Stasi Lights. They’re part of the prep. I’ve only had a few shots and hardly any weird tests, because I’m a TK-pos. Same as George, and Sha’s TP-pos. You get more if you’re just ordinary.” He considered. “Well, none of us are ordinary or we wouldn’t be here, but you know what I mean.”
“Are they trying to up our ability?”
Nicky shrugged.
“What are they prepping us for?”
“Whatever goes on in Back Half. How’d it go with the queen bitch? Did she give you the speech about serving your country?”
“She said I’d been conscripted. I feel more like I got press-ganged. Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see, when captains needed men to crew their ships—”
“I know what press gangs were, Lukey. I did go to school, you know. And you’re not wrong.” He got up. “Come on, let’s go out to the playground. You can give me another chess lesson.”
“I think I just want to lie down,” Luke said.
“You do look kinda pale. But the candy helped, right? Admit it.”
“It did,” Luke agreed. “What did you do to get a token?”
“Nothing. Maureen slipped me one before she went off-shift. Kalisha’s right about her.” Nicky said this almost grudgingly. “If there’s one good person in this palace of shit, it’s her.”
They had arrived at Luke’s door. Nicky held up a fist, and Luke bumped it with his own.
“See you when the ding-dong goes, smart kid. In the meantime, keep your pecker up.”
MAUREEN AND AVERY
1
Luke slipped into a nap crowded with unpleasant dream fragments, only waking when the ding-dong went for supper. He was glad to hear it. Nicky had been wrong; he did want to eat, and he was hungry for company as well as food. Nevertheless, he stopped in the canteen to verify that the others hadn’t just been pulling his leg. They hadn’t been. Next to the snack machine was a fully stocked vintage cigarette dispenser, the lighted square on top showing a man and woman in fancy dress smoking on a balcony and laughing. Next to this was a coin-op dispensing adult beverages in small bottles—what some of the booze-inclined kids at the Brod called “airline nips.” You could get a pack of cigarettes for eight tokens; a small bottle of Leroux Blackberry Wine for five. On the other side of the room was a bright red Coke cooler.
Hands grabbed him from behind and lifted him off his feet. Luke yelled in surprise, and Nicky laughed in his ear.
“If you wet your pants, you must take a chance and dance to France!”
“Put me down!”
Nicky swung him back and forth instead. “Lukey-tiddy-ooky-del-Lukey! Tee-legged, toe-legged, bow-legged Lukey!”
He set Luke down, spun him around, raised his hands, and began to boogaloo to the Muzak drifting from the overhead speakers. Behind him, Kalisha and Iris were looking on with identical boys will be boys expressions. “Wanna fight, Lukey? Tee-legged, toe-legged, bow-legged Lukey?”
“Stick your nose up my ass and fight for air,” Luke said, and began to laugh. The word for Nicky, he thought, whether in a good mood or a bad one, was alive.
“Nice one,” George said, pushing his way between the two girls. “I’m saving that for